Tapinoma sp                                              
Found at a Nottinghamshire garden centre in late August 2024, this unidentified Tapinoma species is present in large numbers, based in a newly renovated greenhouse. Columns of varying-sized workers workers go off in a number of directions to tend aphids and scale insects on potted plants in other greenhouses, but also head outside and cover many metres. There are efforts being made to eradicate these ants.

It was the sheer number of ants in these well-formed columns which prompted my suspisions that this was something more interesting than Lasius niger. Behavioural differences led to me taking numerous specimens, which have been sent off to for identification and the results of which are still being waited on. There are no Tapinoma ants native to Nottinghamshire, so this is certainly an imported species and potentially invasive, which must have arrived here via plant transportation.
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Nottinghamshire (VC56) distribution of Tapinoma sp   
 
 
 
 
The records for the Nottinghamshire distribution map are currently provided by the following contributors - Trevor and Dilys Pendleton.

You can contribute your own records to help us gain an accurate status of this species in Nottinghamshire. Send an Excel spreadsheet of your records via the 'contact us' link at the top of the homepage.

Updated September 2024

copyright © Trevor and Dilys Pendleton (www.eakringbirds.com) . .
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